Entry 14
By Steven Paul Lansky
"My Feet Are Two Different Sizes"
Mer is a friend of mine who teaches English at a secular private high school. She’s nearly thirty, with short-cropped dark hair, intense, warm brown eyes, a short straight nose, and a lot of energy and interest in young people. A little self-conscious about her weight, she has empathy for the struggles of teenagers, having experienced a bit of teenage angst. She lives downtown with her boyfriend who happens to be black. I first met her as I was coming out of my marriage and she has been a fast friend. As I started graduate school she was a key support, as she has a Masters in English Literature from Boston College. We met at Sitwell’s Coffeehouse before it moved next to the Esquire Theater. I’ve helped her grade papers. She helped me with research on a term paper on Nella Larsen. We’ve pulled a couple of all-nighters together working on her grading. We share some strong support for some Sitwell’s regulars whom we’ve helped with the studying phase for SATs. Mer moonlights for a company that gives SAT trainings to high schoolers.
I hadn’t seen her for awhile. I called to see if she would go shopping with me, as I have a hard time shopping for clothes and shoes. After the trip to New York City the shoe problem was in the forefront of my conscious mind. As I planned another trip, this time to Vermont to visit my brother and his family, I just didn’t have a good pair of walking shoes. For years I’d used leather-soled wingtips for walking, but now I was thinking I’d try a newer design. The left shoe of my best pair of wingtips seemed to be getting tighter. I got on the Internet at the new Sitwell’s late one night when the regulars were the only customers. John Stamstead, one of Cincinnati’s finest cyclists, an ultra-marathoner, had done a magazine ad for Rockports. I decided to try their walking shoes. If a great cyclist liked them, maybe they were OK. So I checked out the different designs, and found a store in Northern Kentucky. I liked a brown leather pair with round toes, and an air-cushioned rubber sole.
The plan was to pick up Mer downtown at her beau’s place. He drove a Jaguar and did some kind of public relations writing for some conservative causes. I was starting to wonder about Mer’s politics, but that wasn’t the thing. The thing was, we were going shopping in Newport on a hot summer day. I had lunch in O’Bryanville at Chateau Pomije (An upscale restaurant with a great wine cellar and a rear deck for outdoor dining.) where an old flame that I’d flirted with during my marriage worked the lunch hour as a waitress. Jane is now married and I’m single. She is a platinum blond through and through. I know. Jane was also a back up singer in some bands when I hung out with her. Back in those days she waited tables at my hangout in downtown. She married an artist who also plays electric guitar. So, I told her about playing harp with Jake Speed and The Freddies at Cody’s and invited her to check us out. I sat at the bar and she brought me the last piece of fish they had. Broiled with cole slaw and a fabulous homemade tartar sauce, the meal stuffed me. Jane stopped to chat at the light blue Formica counter as I sat on a tall backed stool. What we said to one another gave me goosebumps, but I cannot recall a word.
As I left O’Bryanville, I snagged some flowers out of a round, concrete, streetside planter for my car. I now had an orange lily and a white daisy in a bottle in the drink holder. Mer was her smiling self at her boyfriend’s. I came in, got a hug, the tour of the first floor business area, with its high ceilings, gray walls, dark stained woodwork, tile floors and marble mantles. Suddenly we were driving and I was intoxicated with Meredith’s presence. I drove through Fort Washington Way where the new stadiums were under construction. I got lost, but with the sunroof and Mer chatting away, I felt warm, loved and as if I were buzzing on some exotic drug. The breeze blew through me, around me, and in me. My thoughts were dusty with Mer’s plumeria scent.
“What are we shopping for?”
“Well, Mer, it’s funny. We’re shopping for shoes. I have a bit of a problem. My feet are two different sizes. I read somewhere that Greg LeMond, the champion cyclist, has the same problem. One foot is a full size larger than the other is. He has custom shoes from an endorsement. I should buy two different pairs of shoes, just to have one pair.”
“Do you really buy two pair?”
“Is it pairs or pair?”
“Two English teachers with one good question.”
“Yeah. I just buy for the left foot. It’s bigger.”
“OK.”
“Then I want to go to this new bike shop I saw advertised in CityBeat. They have Colnago hats.”
“What are Colnago hats?”
“You’ll see.”
When we found the shoe outlet in Newport it had a small driveway with space for five cars in front. The interior had low light, a cramped in feeling. Coming into the air conditioning I felt a slight chill. As we walked in there they were. The exact shoes I wanted in my left foot’s size, right there on the carpeted floor by a low mirror just left of the entry. It was as if the Internet research I had done had been transmitted to the store. I tried them on and they were comfortable, springy, and transcendent for the foot. Ahh, but I needed this. My right foot is a full size smaller than my left, and honestly the right was a bit big. I asked the clerk for a smaller size. She led us to the floor to ceiling shelves in back where I looked at other designs. Nothing looked right. She brought out a smaller pair of the same shoe and I tried them on. By now we were behind a curtain in the back right area of the shop. Here I could sit on a leather stuffed bench to tie the laces. The smaller shoe fit my right foot perfectly. The left was too tight. The narrow, shoe stacked room smelled of leather and cleaning solution. It seemed to close in on me. I felt perspiration on my arms and chest.
Mer said, “No one would know,” and giggled.
I smiled. “You think so?” She shook her head gazing at me, then past me, then at the floor.
I put the larger of the left shoes back on my left foot then put the smaller one in the box with the larger right shoe. We walked up to the counter by the door.
“I’ll wear them,” I said.
There was a thin faced lady clerk, with lipstick that edged larger than her lips who moved deliberately, but had a herky-jerky motion when she pulled the socks off the display behind her.
“One of those. Two of those. One of those,” I went on until I selected forty-five dollars worth of thin, dark, dress socks.
“Cash or charge?” she asked.
“I’ll charge it.”
The clerk filled out a receipt with a pen after running the card through an old fashioned imprinter. Mer wiggled from foot to foot, grinning a bit while we waited.
“Bike shop next,” I said.
We walked out into the sweltering humidity. The afternoon had heated up. I unlocked the gray Toyota , keyed the ignition, flipped on the A/C. Mer laughed then stopped and put her hand on my leg. When I turned toward her, she shook her head. A tap came on the window. It was the lady clerk. I lowered the electric window while feeling my ears get hot.
“It looks like you took two different size shoes,” she said.
“OH,” I said. “I’d like to buy both pair. Here’s my credit card.” I handed her the card through the window.
“Well, I got caught,” I said to Mer. “It turned out OK. She was nice about it.”
Mer was quiet, then said, “It shocked me when she came out.”
“Yeah.”
The air conditioner droned. The car interior cooled. We were no longer giddy and laughing. Mer and I had opened a door together. Our friendship would be altered. I thought about what I had done and felt guilt and remorse.
“I shouldn’t have done that. It was wrong.”
“It seemed rather harmless.”
“They ought to sell shoes singly. You would think some Internet company would come up with a way to get a pair of shoes that are different sizes. There have to be a lot of people with the same need.”
“We almost got away with it.”
“Well. I can afford both pair. I’ll wear thinner socks with the smaller pair. Or, none.”
“Are you sure you can afford both?”
I sat silent for a minute. I could have gone inside, taken off the smaller shoe and made the larger pair a pair again. I was embarrassed.
“Yep.”
The lady came out with the shoes, a blue pen, and the receipt to sign. I signed and was careful to return her pen before closing the window again.
She didn’t say anything when she handed over the box. I felt bad. Even in the cool car I was sweating. My black cotton, button-down shirt clung to me. The gray and maroon cloth car seat was wet. I didn’t like myself a whole lot. Mer sat deflated. Her face had lost its joy.
I drove over to Monmouth Street looking for the bike shop. Mer spotted it first. I went past and had to turn around. We were walking down the street together while my steps sprung up and down from the new shoes. They made cricket like sounds because of the air-filled insoles. In the cluttered, well-lit shop I found a pink, yellow and blue Colnago racing cap. It had club symbols on it. When I showed it to Mer, she laughed. The hat fit. There were racks and racks of jerseys. Then I bought two yellow jerseys, one long sleeve, and one short sleeve. I wondered what Mer thought about my spending. She didn’t say a word. In the rear of the store hi-tech top-of-the-line racing bikes nestled on chrome stands side-by-side. The new technology looked so ultra-lite and fragile to a large cyclist like me. I chatted with the owner who seemed to recognize my name from my credit card. I like to think I’m a known cyclist in the area, and he asked me where I had been, as if I’d been away. I told him I hadn’t been riding that actively, but was getting back to it in Clifton.
Back in the Toyota, Mer and I sped over the Licking River back to Covington, crossed the Ohio on the Suspension Bridge with the steel deck singing under the tires.
“Do you like the lily?” I asked.
“Pretty color,” she said.
“I lifted it from a streetside planter in O’Bryanville,” I laughed.
She smiled but her eyebrows flattened. There was an awkward quiet and I thought about turning on the radio or flipping in a Bob Dylan tape. Instead I looked ahead and tried to watch Mer in my peripheral vision. She leaned away from me into the seat. Her eyes cast down, I could see the faint eye-shadow and a fold of skin at her jaw.
I found my way through the roadways that were still under construction swinging around corners, rocking the car, while still fascinated with Mer’s essence, her plumeria scent spinning in my head. We arrived back at her door on Ninth Street exactly an hour and ten minutes from when I picked her up.
Saying good-bye, I reached around her to squeeze and kissed her warmly on the cheek trying to find her lips. She squirmed away, obviously uncomfortable. I haven’t seen her since.
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